Abstract
Introduction:
in the COVID-19 pandemic, social issues merge with health issues, posing challenges to the labor market.
Objective:
to analyze the context of the domestic workers activity in the COVID-19 pandemic regarding the vulnerabilities of the category and the definition of essential activities by federal decrees.
Methods:
the analysis was based on four federal decrees published in the first half of 2020, which defined the essential activities in the pandemic, and on technical reports produced by Rede CoVida and Rede de Pesquisa Solidária, selected from themes related to occupational health, social aspects of the pandemic in Brazil and domestic work.
Results:
the analysis showed that illnesses and deaths related to COVID-19 are not evenly distributed among the population due to the country’s socioeconomic, racial and gender inequalities. The positive and negative aspects of not including domestic work as an essential activity were also discussed.
Conclusion:
the discrimination of the variables occupation, skin color/race, sex/gender can help understand the social aspects of the pandemic and enable the design of public policies to minimize its harm, including the definition of essential activities and of financial aid that allows workers to comply with social distancing measures.
Keywords:
domestic work; essential activities; pandemic; COVID-19; occupational health